COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 67

CAL TECH EARTHQUAKE LAB
While I never installed a computer at the Earthquake Lab at Cal Tech, I did visit with them several times. If I remember correctly, their total computer power consisted of a LPG-30 computer, built by Royal McBee Computer Corp., a subsidiary of the typewriter company. I remember nothing more about this computer, except it had a very unusual type of memory.

It may be of little interest to those of you who don’t live in California, but for those of us who do, I’ll let us in on a little secret. They haven’t the slightest idea when the next big earthquake might happen, but they always say, “Within the next 30 years … … .” I determined, and they laughed and agreed, that if they say “next year” people will panic, if they say “one hundred years” no one will pay any attention to them, and their project won’t be funded next year. A thirty year prediction satisfies everyone.

SCAN OPTICS
The last “real job” in the computer business was selling Optical Character equipment for Scan Optics, a competitor to Scan Data, mentioned earlier. The last system I sold, an optical scanner, cost about $750,000.

Just to show how things didn’t always work as planned, a VP of Scan Optics tried for several months to hire me, and would visit with me whenever he came to LA. I finally joined that company, and since I was very familiar with both Optical Character recognition equipment and the potential customers for that equipment, I spent the first month or so calling on customers and prospects, and learning about their equipment, before I went back east to visit Headquarters and meet the people involved. That way I would be primed with detailed and pointed questions to ask the engineers and “paper-pushers” at headquarters.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at headquarters and was told that the VP who had “romanced” me all these months had been fired, and now I worked for people who had never heard of me! That did make it a little difficult, here and there.